Can't the spin doctors at MS see that this is exactly the sort of cynical campaign that will damage their case in the court of public opinion? I cannot imagine that there are many people more intelligent than "ditto heads" that will fall for this. But maybe there are enough "dittos" out there to make a difference? The stupidity of the American People has never been in doubt, sadly.
But we do know (approx.) how many we have not found! To find out how many fish are in a pond, one starts fishing. As one extracts fish the rate at which one catches fish will drop. One then interpolates the zero-crossing, and the integral is the total number of fish that were there to start with.
If I were in law enforcement this product would make me cum in my drawers! One place where all of the essential data exist for tracking people, money, communications, and associations. Now, all we need is one "easy" federal judge, and the keys to the kingdom are in hand!
This is almost too much like the plot of that really awful film "The Net".
The sorts of images that would not be dealt with correctly;
1. People in swimsuits. 2. People doing nasty things, but wearing "fetish atire." 3. People doing nasty things with Members Of Other Species. (Animals, ICK!) 4. Wresting (Including Sumo.) 5. Sunsets. (Some of them have a lot of "flesh tones" in them. 6. Manipulated images with a slighly more blue color temperature. 7. Medical images. 8. Fine art. 9. Bodybuilding pictures. (see: swimsuits)
What an obvious, but still obviously stupid idea! I've been doing image analysis for over 20 years, and this idea did not deserve a moment's consideration, much less venture capital.
There was a game years ago called "Chipwits". It ran on Macs (Plus and older) and Commodore-64s and Apple ][s. In it, one programmed a robot character to navigate mazes, find "food", destroy dangerous critters, and avoid hazards. You programmed him in a graphical language called IBOL which was stack based and which had code size limitations based on both the number of panels available and the layout of icons on the panels. My son loved it. As did I. I really wish I could get a modern implementation of Chipwits!
Or, for that matter, even Windows users who use something other than Outlook. Sometimes I wonder if all of these holes through MS code are put there to facilitate MS industrial espionage? They seem to have no visible ethics otherwise, so this would not amaze me at all.
Doesn't this make you wonder what hidden bytecodes are in their JVM?
So; not "proven", but a very strong candidate. And as for why tire particles are different now? Tires now are harder and the particles are smaller and more likely to become airborne.
Sadly, it would appear that asthma is effected more by the particles shed from automobile tires than from exhaust. The new high-strength "rubber" makes particles much different from tires 25 years ago. This would explain the recent increases in asthma.
It will be a long time before these engines will be as reliable as cams and pusher rods. Not to say that is isn't a good approach, but nothing electronic functions very well when it is -40F here, and I have no reason to expect that these engines will be an exception.
And what exactly happens in a high compression engine when a valve sticks in the open position and the piston comes home? Nothing good!
I am somewhat of a procrastinator, and would often have to pay late fees for bills. I signed up for PayTrust in February, and have found it to be efficient and effective. You can set up rules for paying bills on a per-vendor basis. You can either have your bills sent to you, and post them yourself, or sent to PayTrust directly. When a bill goes to PayTrust, they scan it and post it to your account automatically, and notify you by email when they have. You can view the scanned image of your bill online. You can get a CDROM wil all of your bills for the year sent to you for record keeping. And it exports to spreadsheets and to personal finance programs. No more lost bills. No more forgotten payments. What is there not to like?
Well, actually, I was on the Motorola Envoy team (A MagicCAP PDA from the Dawn Time), and Palm first put Grafitti on the MagicCAP platform, and also on the Newton platform.
And they will license it to anybody willing to pay, as in Handspring, so its not like its locked away.
Not even close! Apple had two billion dollars in the bank at the time of Microsoft's "investment". The facts are that Microsoft (wittingly or unwittingly) used Apple-copyrighted code in Video For Windows, and was caught at it. The "Investment" was worked out as a face-saving measure with Steve Jobs. Also part of the deal was the continuation of development of MS-Office for Mac-OS. Microsoft was issued non-voting, non-preferred shares as I recall. As this class of share is not publically traded, its present value can only be a conjecture...
I think a great hack was debugging the code in the Mars Pathfinder/Sojourner Rover after the vehicles had deployed on Mars. This was possible because the debugging tool had been built into the final software load and sent along. Running a debugging session with a many-light-minute delay loop was a really bold thing to do.
What if something *happened* to Judge Jackson? Some *accident* or other? Given the ethics shown thusfar by various employees of Microsoft, who is going to bet that there isn't a "Lone Wolf" with a disposition to violence? There are literally half a trillion dollars riding on this ruling. I really hope the Honorable Jurist has some Federal Marshalls guarding him!
I was on Zenith's DIVX team, and I ratify this opinion. DIVX would have been a very, very difficult nut to crack. I spent several weeks of study on the design documentation looking for a hole, and there was none to be found. The only way to do it would have been to open up one of the ASICs and bond out some of the internal decoded video signals. $50 and a yard of ale to the first person to do this.
Well, honestly, I didn't think it was *evil*, but I thought it would be perceived as such. And I told people that it would be. The DIVX folks were not interested in being Big Brother, they were interested in providing a service that would obsolete video rental returns, and in making some major money while doing so. They failed to correctly consider the implications of the system that the available technology forced them to design.
However, if I were asked to work on something I actually thought was evil, I would either decline, or steer it away from that condition, or learn how to subvert it. In all the years I have been designing systems (22 years), I have not yet been faced with that choice. And that includes my time writing nuclear safety systems for a major power utility.
I have, however, decided not to go ahead with business ideas of my own which I thought were unethical. For example, I considered starting a 900 phone sex service in 1980, but decided that I didn't want to profit from other people's loneliness.
Back when I was on the DIVX project at Zenith, (and yes, I know DIVX was *evil*) DIVX was the encryption method that was competing with the current method. The flaws of the current method were well-known to the crypto people at DIVX/Circuit City, and when they went out to sell DIVX to the "content providers", they let them know exactly what those weaknesses were. I don't fault them for not choosing DIVX, but I do fault them for putting any reliance on a known weak system.
The Gaming Modem is not a WinModem(tm). It is a traditional, or "Controller-based" modem. So, I can see no reason why it should not be usable in Linux with a minimum amount of hassle. Mind you, I have not tried this myself (yet).
I'm an engineer in the 3Com modems group. The Game Modem is optimized for small packet sizes. Most games use tiny packets to indicate stuff like rudder position and etc, so this works better. Of course, short-packet pings fall into this category, too. Also, we ship it with some quite nice games in the box.
And, yes, it works just fine for the traditional things you use a modem for.
You *can* simulate the other two buttons pretty easily using keypresses; Option-2 and Option-3. And (though I have not tried yet) I have read that multi-button ADB mice can be made to work with MkLinux. You have to download the right Mach kernel build from the mklinux site, as that supports the greatest number of mice, and you use mouseconfig to select the type of Apple (read Adb) mouse you have; 1, 2 or 3 buttons. I have a multibutton USB trackball on the iMac at home, and I will check tonight to see if that works properly under Yellow Dog.
I advise beginning Linux users to pick the right platform for learning Linux. That is either a very, very standard PC, with no funny options or off-brand cards, or almost any recent (7200 or newer) Macintosh PPC. Without a doubt, the Linux kits I have installed on PPC Macs (I've installed MkLinux, LinuxPPC, and (this weekend) Yellow Dog Linux) have been the simplest Linux installations I have ever done, with the possible exception of the RedHat distribution for Sun/SPARC. And since it will run on an iMac (Saw a sales return iMac at Comp-USA for $699 last week), you can have a fast, small machine with networking and modem and a nice display for cheap.
In an article over at ZDNET, they are talking about the IPO for andover.net, which is (according to ZDNET) the parent company of/. How much money are our various ramblings here worth? I had the impression that this site made a few bucks, but not a fortune.
Slashdot Mirror
Can't the spin doctors at MS see that this is exactly the sort of cynical campaign that will damage their case in the court of public opinion? I cannot imagine that there are many people more intelligent than "ditto heads" that will fall for this. But maybe there are enough "dittos" out there to make a difference? The stupidity of the American People has never been in doubt, sadly.
But we do know (approx.) how many we have not found! To find out how many fish are in a pond, one starts fishing. As one extracts fish the rate at which one catches fish will drop. One then interpolates the zero-crossing, and the integral is the total number of fish that were there to start with.
Wow! This is a great idea! ::sarcasm mode::
If I were in law enforcement this product would make me cum in my drawers! One place where all of the essential data exist for tracking people, money, communications, and associations. Now, all we need is one "easy" federal judge, and the keys to the kingdom are in hand!
This is almost too much like the plot of that really awful film "The Net".
Beware!
The sorts of images that would not be dealt with correctly;
1. People in swimsuits.
2. People doing nasty things, but wearing "fetish atire."
3. People doing nasty things with Members Of Other Species. (Animals, ICK!)
4. Wresting (Including Sumo.)
5. Sunsets. (Some of them have a lot of "flesh tones" in them.
6. Manipulated images with a slighly more blue color temperature.
7. Medical images.
8. Fine art.
9. Bodybuilding pictures. (see: swimsuits)
What an obvious, but still obviously stupid idea! I've been doing image analysis for over 20 years, and this idea did not deserve a moment's consideration, much less venture capital.
There was a game years ago called "Chipwits". It ran on Macs (Plus and older) and Commodore-64s and Apple ][s. In it, one programmed a robot character to navigate mazes, find "food", destroy dangerous critters, and avoid hazards. You programmed him in a graphical language called IBOL which was stack based and which had code size limitations based on both the number of panels available and the layout of icons on the panels. My son loved it. As did I. I really wish I could get a modern implementation of Chipwits!
Or, for that matter, even Windows users who use something other than Outlook. Sometimes I wonder if all of these holes through MS code are put there to facilitate MS industrial espionage? They seem to have no visible ethics otherwise, so this would not amaze me at all.
Doesn't this make you wonder what hidden bytecodes are in their JVM?
Here are several cites;
Road Dust Contributes To Asthma, Allergies
ALLERGIC TO RADIALS?: PRELIMINARY STUDIES LINK AIRBORNE TIRE PARTICLES TO ASTHMA
Tire Home Page
So; not "proven", but a very strong candidate. And as for why tire particles are different now? Tires now are harder and the particles are smaller and more likely to become airborne.
Sadly, it would appear that asthma is effected more by the particles shed from automobile tires than from exhaust. The new high-strength "rubber" makes particles much different from tires 25 years ago. This would explain the recent increases in asthma.
It will be a long time before these engines will be as reliable as cams and pusher rods. Not to say that is isn't a good approach, but nothing electronic functions very well when it is -40F here, and I have no reason to expect that these engines will be an exception.
And what exactly happens in a high compression engine when a valve sticks in the open position and the piston comes home? Nothing good!
I am somewhat of a procrastinator, and would often have to pay late fees for bills. I signed up for PayTrust in February, and have found it to be efficient and effective. You can set up rules for paying bills on a per-vendor basis. You can either have your bills sent to you, and post them yourself, or sent to PayTrust directly. When a bill goes to PayTrust, they scan it and post it to your account automatically, and notify you by email when they have. You can view the scanned image of your bill online. You can get a CDROM wil all of your bills for the year sent to you for record keeping. And it exports to spreadsheets and to personal finance programs. No more lost bills. No more forgotten payments. What is there not to like?
Well, actually, I was on the Motorola Envoy team (A MagicCAP PDA from the Dawn Time), and Palm first put Grafitti on the MagicCAP platform, and also on the Newton platform.
And they will license it to anybody willing to pay, as in Handspring, so its not like its locked away.
Not even close! Apple had two billion dollars in the bank at the time of Microsoft's "investment". The facts are that Microsoft (wittingly or unwittingly) used Apple-copyrighted code in Video For Windows, and was caught at it. The "Investment" was worked out as a face-saving measure with Steve Jobs. Also part of the deal was the continuation of development of MS-Office for Mac-OS. Microsoft was issued non-voting, non-preferred shares as I recall. As this class of share is not publically traded, its present value can only be a conjecture...
It is *simple* to attach a larger moniter to a first generation iMac!
* Pull off the case back.
* Unscrew the built in monitor's cable. (Its a standard connector.)
* Connect your big monitor. You may need one of those Belkin MacVGA adaptors.
I have run an NEC Multisync XL on my iMac in exactly this fashion.
Also Griffin makes an adaptor that moves the connector off to the side panel so you can video mirror onto both displays.
"We rename our failures."
I think a great hack was debugging the code in the Mars Pathfinder/Sojourner Rover after the vehicles had deployed on Mars. This was possible because the debugging tool had been built into the final software load and sent along. Running a debugging session with a many-light-minute delay loop was a really bold thing to do.
What if something *happened* to Judge Jackson? Some *accident* or other? Given the ethics shown thusfar by various employees of Microsoft, who is going to bet that there isn't a "Lone Wolf" with a disposition to violence? There are literally half a trillion dollars riding on this ruling. I really hope the Honorable Jurist has some Federal Marshalls guarding him!
I was on Zenith's DIVX team, and I ratify this opinion. DIVX would have been a very, very difficult nut to crack. I spent several weeks of study on the design documentation looking for a hole, and there was none to be found. The only way to do it would have been to open up one of the ASICs and bond out some of the internal decoded video signals. $50 and a yard of ale to the first person to do this.
Well, honestly, I didn't think it was *evil*, but I thought it would be perceived as such. And I told people that it would be. The DIVX folks were not interested in being Big Brother, they were interested in providing a service that would obsolete video rental returns, and in making some major money while doing so. They failed to correctly consider the implications of the system that the available technology forced them to design.
However, if I were asked to work on something I actually thought was evil, I would either decline, or steer it away from that condition, or learn how to subvert it. In all the years I have been designing systems (22 years), I have not yet been faced with that choice. And that includes my time writing nuclear safety systems for a major power utility.
I have, however, decided not to go ahead with business ideas of my own which I thought were unethical. For example, I considered starting a 900 phone sex service in 1980, but decided that I didn't want to profit from other people's loneliness.
No argument. I don't own one.
Back when I was on the DIVX project at Zenith, (and yes, I know DIVX was *evil*) DIVX was the encryption method that was competing with the current method. The flaws of the current method were well-known to the crypto people at DIVX/Circuit City, and when they went out to sell DIVX to the "content providers", they let them know exactly what those weaknesses were. I don't fault them for not choosing DIVX, but I do fault them for putting any reliance on a known weak system.
The Gaming Modem is not a WinModem(tm). It is a traditional, or "Controller-based" modem. So, I can see no reason why it should not be usable in Linux with a minimum amount of hassle. Mind you, I have not tried this myself (yet).
Hi!
I'm an engineer in the 3Com modems group. The Game Modem is optimized for small packet sizes. Most games use tiny packets to indicate stuff like rudder position and etc, so this works better. Of course, short-packet pings fall into this category, too. Also, we ship it with some quite nice games in the box.
And, yes, it works just fine for the traditional things you use a modem for.
Happy Halloween!
You *can* simulate the other two buttons pretty easily using keypresses; Option-2 and Option-3. And (though I have not tried yet) I have read that multi-button ADB mice can be made to work with MkLinux. You have to download the right Mach kernel build from the mklinux site, as that supports the greatest number of mice, and you use mouseconfig to select the type of Apple (read Adb) mouse you have; 1, 2 or 3 buttons. I have a multibutton USB trackball on the iMac at home, and I will check tonight to see if that works properly under Yellow Dog.
I advise beginning Linux users to pick the right platform for learning Linux. That is either a very, very standard PC, with no funny options or off-brand cards, or almost any recent (7200 or newer) Macintosh PPC. Without a doubt, the Linux kits I have installed on PPC Macs (I've installed MkLinux, LinuxPPC, and (this weekend) Yellow Dog Linux) have been the simplest Linux installations I have ever done, with the possible exception of the RedHat distribution for Sun/SPARC. And since it will run on an iMac (Saw a sales return iMac at Comp-USA for $699 last week), you can have a fast, small machine with networking and modem and a nice display for cheap.
In an article over at ZDNET, they are talking about the IPO for andover.net, which is (according to ZDNET) the parent company of /. How much money are our various ramblings here worth? I had the impression that this site made a few bucks, but not a fortune.